


momomo

by feelingfrenzy



Category: ATEEZ (Band), 우주소녀 | Cosmic Girls | WJSN
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, M/M, Mass Effect Alienfucker Agenda, Meet-Ugly, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-24 22:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingfrenzy/pseuds/feelingfrenzy
Summary: “Cute,” elf smirks, “Can you give it to me?”Normally Jongho totally would tell him to get lost, probably even start a fight. He would have cursed him with every swear word he knows, in every language in this galaxy. No way would he let anyone in the whole universe rob him. Especially of this necklace. He doesn’t even let anyone touch it, seriously. Asking that would’ve totally offended him normally. Yet for some reason he feels nothing such and just nods, relaxing his body to a less threatening posture.the one where space prince Jongho has a very much meet-ugly with a pirate Yeosang
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	momomo

**Author's Note:**

> the way i've had another jongsang fic in my drafts for 3 months and i dropped everything for it .  
inspiration: my dear oomfs as [always](https://twitter.com/pinks3al/status/1168621656417419264)
> 
> title is from wjsn's debut song.. yes old fans remember i had a fic with this name already mind your business  
and.. jongho ujung  
it's not really beta'd but i had it proofread and oktya said it's fine. if you see anything that's on her and my small brain
> 
> update: a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5FBFcmuBpQ6io2gVWR7r8l?si=oFsnILODQZmeLOrM3fahvw&nd=1) now

“How the hell do you not notice someone lockpicking our fucking hermetic door?”

Kihyun is furious—of course he would be, he’s responsible for the ship with his life as a captain and concerningly attached to it emotionally. He grabs Hyungwon by the collar, shoves him away from the panel and starts clicking seemingly random buttons with shaky hands. His catlike ears are standing straight on top of his head, turned in front.

“Don’t you think they’d send an inorganic life form so blocking oxygen would do nothing?” Hyungwon points out monotonically. Jongho is scared, everyone probably is, the fact that he keeps his voice calm is shocking. Ancient snake wisdom.

Kihyun grimaces, like admitting he’s wrong physically pains him. Which is probably true. “Any new details?”

“Pilot panel is hacked,” Seonghwa immediately responds, kicking his chair away from the panel, “I think it does a different action from commanded, but no idea yet what’s the algorithm.”

Kihyun breathes out a quiet “shit” and turns away to Jongho. “Let’s just get these damn rats manually. Start the fucking hunt.”

Armory dock smells like a swamp, which is inevitable—Luda always spills water on herself here, it stays here on the floor and you kind of can’t open a window on the spaceship to ventilate. And she says she likes the smell and humidity, it reminds her of Cenabia. When Jongho enters to get his battleaxe, she’s here wetting her collar for her gills while Yeonjung and Wooyoung load their blasters.

“Your brother’s gonna kill someone of our fellow crew members, get him,” Jongho says walking to the stand where his battleaxe is.

“Classic,” she sighs. “I don’t want to die, I’m not getting him.”

“We can die now, dude,” Wooyoung snorts, not looking up.

“I’m untouchable,” she replies seriously and loads the gun. Her cat ears jolt up straight, the whole posture emits confidence, and it’s contagious.

Jongho is still scared at the same time as he feels this slight rush of confidence. He participated in a few battles, but all of them were outside and small. They have no idea how many intruders are there, what they want and how many weapons they have. Fighting inside the ship is also dangerous, one blow in the window and the majority of them are gone. Only Bona would live if she transforms back. Actually, he didn’t ask her if she has lungs when she shapeshifts into Kim Jiyeon. Cool, they will die and he will never know if she has lungs or what is Bona’s favorite drama with Kim Jiyeon.

They will die and he hadn’t seen his mom in months.

Luda coughs loudly, probably getting rid of the dry air in the gills, and nods at the exit, rasping to them, “Go leave before we lose our ship to fucking pirates.”

Jongho turns to Yeonjung and Wooyoung. “Yeah. Don’t die, guys.”

“You don’t either,” Wooyoung high-fives him and pats his shoulder. Jongho breathes deeply and leaves them to finish loading the blasters, they will join soon in five minutes or so.

It’s still quiet, so the intruders hopefully won’t find out they noticed them; but this silence is so awkward and thick it hurts his ears. Jongho once was outside in the space, it’s the same kind of deafening void and loneliness, the same fear of something unknown around you. He knows this ship like the back of his hand, he has his weapon with him, but it still scares him so much he is honestly moving only because he didn’t have the time to plan something else. Engineering dock has this constant motor hum, and for some reason it makes it even worse, now he basically can feel the air weight crushing him with the vibration. It’s too much. Too much. He just wanted some nice travels with his friends, and not only does he have to free colonies of insectoids, they’re even being boarded by pirates. Fuck this. He should’ve stayed in college.

And then he finally finds someone; bright patch of pink hair in between the tubes behind the boxes, rummaging through for unknown reasons. Most likely trying to find something that can be turned off.

Jongho breathes in and says, “What are you doing here?” His voice is so shaky, this is humiliating.

The intruder gets startled and turns around slowly. Jongho actually almost gasps—they revealed to be a young looking man with a very beautiful face. It looks so gently and soft, sparkly eyes, and his cheeks have dark pink spots that Jongho figures out to be ‘petals’. So, he cornered a squargarian. A space elf. Endangered species. Either Jongho gets killed by the elf pirate, or gets big jail time for poaching.

The elf turns around, sees the axe and immediately gets his hands up in front of himself.

“Well. Stealing the ship,” he shrugs. His voice is deeper than he expected, compared to Yeoreum’s voice, for example. He’d expect such voice from a gem, maybe, not fragile sentient flower. “I thought you had figured it out. Hey, by the way, I’m unarmed.”

“Come on, you talking weed, I’m not buying this,” Jongho snorts and takes another step closer. Like, literally every kid knows, that squargarians are the most dangerous nation in the inhabitable universe, it differs for every individual, but believing them might cost you life. They all have their own ways to win and deceive.

“Listen,” elf sighs, “I understand you’re mad, but can you not insult me? My nation is on the verge of extinction, I have a hard time already.”

Jongho actually feels bad now. “Sorry,” he mutters and stops walking closer.

“Nah, we’re good. It’s not really an offensive insult.”

They stand like that in complete silence; Jongho can hear someone fighting behind the ceiling and the siren starts blaring on the other dock level. Elf stands with his hands in front of him in the sign of surrender and stares back intensely. Then at some point his eyes start wandering, stopping at Jongho’s chest.

“Nice necklace,” he suddenly says.

“Thanks,” Jongho replies immediately. It’s simple but pretty; a small round pendant size of a coin, with a wind rose decorated by blue gems. The only thing that proves his rights for the throne at some godforsaken colony at the far edge of the Milky Way. He hasn’t even ever been here. But wearing it is nice, he even feels cool sometimes. “It’s from my mother.”

“Cute,” elf smirks, “Can you give it to me?”

Normally Jongho totally would tell him to get lost, probably even start a fight. He would have cursed him with every swear word he knows, in every language in this galaxy. No way would he let anyone in the whole universe rob him. Especially of this necklace. He doesn’t even let anyone touch it, seriously. Asking that would’ve totally offended him normally. Yet for some reason he feels nothing such and just nods, relaxing his body to a less threatening posture.

Elf walks up to him. Jongho registers distantly he should feel that he’s in danger, but all his instincts kind of die. He just stands like that, barely breathing, hypnotized by the way elf’s fluffy bangs fall to his face, strand by strand. He reaches out to Jongho’s collarbone where the pendant lies on and moves his fingers along with the thin chain to the back of his neck for the lock. Two invisible movements and he’s holding his necklace in his hand and smiling.

“Thank you,” he says and smiles.

“Oh, no problem.” Jongho smiles back and giggles quietly.

And then it kind of hits him. What the hell is he doing? He just gave out his family relic like that. Dumb ass.

Elf, apparently, notices the change in his face, so he grabs his left hand by the elbow, blocking him from moving it and possibly hitting with an axe.

“Give it back,” Jongho asks desperately. He doesn't expect him to do it, he just begs because he has a tiny bit of hope left.

And it gets crushed.

“Nope,” the elf even has the audacity to smile at him, “It’s mine now.”

Jongho is a nice person, but he’s about to beat his ass. Fuck that ‘I’m unarmed’ bullshit. He’s a goner now. So he tries to move his left arm and—

The elf just presses his fingers deep into the inside of his elbow, that part uncovered by the armor plates, and it’s actually hurts so much that Jongho pathetically whines and loses control over his grip, dropping the axe on the floor.

“You’ve wasted enough of my time,” elf says coldly.

Jongho finally gets back to his senses and tries to hit him with another hand. The elf has to ease the grip on his left arm to block the punch, but he still can’t get out of it; and before Jongho had the time to react, he can feel the back of his head hitting the wall, making it ring in his ears. While he tries to see something, he hears the metal scratching of his axe being kicked away from them. Jongho uses this small distraction for himself and jumps in front of him, trying to hit something—not to brag, but his fist is kinda heavy, actually, any punch would probably hurt—yet the elf ducks it. He immediately kicks him in the shin; Jongho almost falls but quickly throws another punch, this time hitting the elf in the face.

_That’s so sad that I have to damage such beauty_, Jongho thinks, retrieving while the elf grabs the wall next to him, hissing, and shakes off broken pieces of face flowers from his cheek. It totally felt like vandalizing an art piece, but weirdly satisfying. Maybe _Fight Club_ was onto something. Seonghwa has to hear about this later.

Jongho gets a bit lost in this moment, so he misses the elf running at him and literally scratching across his face with his rose thorn-like nails. While he’s too disoriented after that, he gets punched on his jaw and shoved onto one of the shelves, falling with it. There are too many loud noises—the wood cracking, one of the plastic boxes opening and something like a screwdriver or a knife dropping on the metal floor, hopefully without bone breaking sounds, but he’s not sure right now.

He is disoriented again, so he misses a moment of elf leaving and now is just lying like that, staring at the ceiling. That’s how Juyeon finds him a half an hour later, when the siren stops blaring already and the pirates leave.

—

Seola grabs his face and presses her fingers carefully under his ears, checking if the jaw is dislocated. Jongho winces, it hurts as she presses the bruise, but judging by her relieved expression, everything is fine. They are mostly finished with him, no broken bones even though he bruised his ribs; she already gave him an antidote for oleandrin just in case, all of it is just bruises and scratches. And a crushed ego, but it be like that sometimes.

“So, what was it?” Minhyuk asks him.

“Can you shut up?” Seola says in an annoyed voice, turning around to grab antiseptics. “He can’t talk now when I’m treating him.”

“Let alone I already told you,” Jongho adds, while Seola is struggling with opening a bottle. “Squargarian, pink hair, my height. That’s it. What did you learn from it?”

“That it was definitely Exy’s crew.”

Seola freezes, the cotton pad centimeter away from Jongho’s face. He can see a slight shade of fear in her eyes, but she blinks and it’s gone. Then she presses the pad to a scratch on his chin, making him hiss as the antiseptic stings.

“We haven’t seen Exy herself, though,” Minhyuk continues, “But I’ve seen San. He’s a famous criminal already in Hessevia. Also there was Hongjoong and that alexandrite guy, don’t know what his name is. People say they all recently joined her team as well as the pink haired squargarian. But it was just a rumor. I guess it’s true.”

“That means your quest is at least a bit fruitful,” Seola utters, noticeably bitter. Jongho feels like he shouldn’t know the reason she reacts like that—probably this would only make him sad.

Jongho watches the footage with vague disbelief—that’s him, without a doubt, being an absolute fool, letting that guy take his family jewelry and kick his ass—this is so humiliating he can’t bring himself to admit it even in his own thoughts. The worst part of this is that he remembers all of it in details. He certainly was manipulated, but he was thinking so clearly, like all of these were his decisions, he totally thought that giving him his family necklace was a good idea, because he asked. But he was caught off guard by that pretty face without any mind control, though; he just paused for a bit and stared when the elf turned to him. Should’ve attacked straight away, probably. He sees all the tactical mistakes clearly now, why does his brain always go blank in the actual battle?

Bona snorts loudly and stops the security camera footage after three loops. “Jongho, honestly? I think there are barely any excuses,” she says with a wide smile, turning to him.

Jongho definitely doesn’t have any excuses. He can only make his grave deeper from here. Thankfully, he can’t get hired if he is hierarchically higher than all of his crewmates. He never abused his status but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Have you seen that jawline, though?” he blurts out.

Bona just stares at him for a solid half of a minute. “What?”

“The jawline,” Jongho decides to go down all the way with this situation. “He’s like… sexy.”

Seonghwa beside him bursts out laughing but quickly stops himself with a deep breath. “Tell that to Kihyun and he will add to your face more scratches.”

“No, like,” Jongho finds a way to connect that with an actual thing that happened. “I think I was under mind control. I was convinced he’s too sexy to fight him and I deserve to be robbed, you know?”

Bona shifts her eyes to Seonghwa. “Is that an earthling thing?”

“Kinda,” he moves his palm, gesturing her that he’s unsure. “We do that sometimes, but I mostly saw it on _Twitter_. I think it’s safer to ask a squargarian if they can mind control.”

Jongho nods. He has one in mind, and since they are probably going back to Haven, he would have a chance to talk with her.

“Well. Some of us can,” Yeoreum shrugs and spins the garden scissors on her finger. “It’s like… I don’t know, riding a bike? We can learn it, but it’s not necessary, some can’t even if they tried to do so, but it’s a rare condition. I personally never tried to learn, because I never needed.”

“I see.”

“This scratch looks nasty,” Dayoung interrupts them, leaning to Jongho to take a closer look. “Was that Kihyun?”

The scratches aren’t even that noticeable now, by the way, you still can see where they were, but it’s only two old scabs on his nose and cheek, where the nails went into his skin the deepest.

“No. It was a mysterious stranger of Squargaria nation,” Jongho lightly shoves her away from his face. “You should see my ribs, _that’s_ nasty.”

“Awee, our Jongho got his first battle scratch,” she coos, waggling her bunny ears, then pats his cheek and runs away with a giggle.

“That was expected,” Yeoreum shrugs and fixes one of the chrysanthemums in her flower composition. “I just know that you can defeat every creature in the universe, including abyssal cenabian sharks in their natural habitat. The only match would be one of us with mind-control skills.”

Jongho snorts. “Thanks for believing in me.”

Then they’re quiet. Yeoreum shuffles the bouquet wrap for her flowers, Wonho and Dayoung are talking behind the wall in the utility room, then Wonho walks out with a big vase of lilies and puts it near one of the shelves and they have a senseless talk about _what’s up?—not much, you?—same_; after this Jongho decides to go.

The Haven has never changed in those rounds he had lived here, and it probably hasn't changed since it was discovered by felines—same white blinding light on the ceiling, same constant revving of cars, same six billion people crowd. There’s no plan on what to do next, maybe he should visit college to save his public image and GPA, but there’s a high risk of his mom finding out he’s in Haven. She would demand him to visit and then will get upset over his injuries and him losing the necklace. Correction, him giving out the necklace. It’s been about three days since he lost it, and he has been thinking of how to explain it to her without making her sad. And about that pirate sometimes. A weird mix of frustration over being _dishonored_ like that but with the excitement of meeting someone who can match your strength. Well, and he’s not gonna lie, he’s really pretty from what he remembers.

Maybe he should call Yunho and ask him if he can stay at his and Seonghwa’s apartment for a few days. Kihyun said they need three days to repair the ship and check in about Exy with the police, and Seola told him that he needs at least two weeks to heal his bruises. He isn’t planning to skip a whole trip because of it, though, he is definitely going to appear in the spaceport with the rest of the crew. It’s just a bruise, yes it fucking hurts when he touches it or coughs, the armor would probably hurt too, but damn him if he will ever slack on saving the world, the people need him.

“Hey.”

He knows this voice and the realization makes Jongho literally break a cold sweat. Right now, at the crowded street, in the Haven? Seriously? This is unfair. They can’t fight here. He turns around slowly, looking behind his shoulder, trying not to show any reaction.

Yeah, that one pirate squargarian. The space elf with pink hair, sexy jawline and fawn eyes. And a light bruise on his right cheekbone, hidden behind a square bandaid. He’s dressed differently, not in a space armored suit, rather like a normal young person in his twenties. Normal young person in his twenties who probably posts _TikToks_ with _#Eboy_ hashtags. He pulls it off well, though; Jongho can’t imagine himself wearing or just liking anything like that, but him? That kind-of-a-ribbon looks so good on his neck. This black jacket over the t-shirt, with black ripped jeans, contrasting pink. Fuck, he’s supposed to be mad at him, not fawn over. _No, don’t be an asshole, you’re too sexy, haha._

“Please, don’t call the police on me,” he panics, apparently noticing Jongho forcing himself to get angry. “Hear me out.”

Well, he has to hear him out. What did his mom say about the noble dignity in the battlefield and respecting the enemies? He turns around and puts his hands in the pockets, trying to look as confident as possible. “I’m listening.”

“So, like, what was it…” he makes a small step closer but notices Jongho frowning more so he stops and just explains himself, speaking fast. “We went to the black market and like, sold all the things we got recently, and I was trying to sell the necklace, and the buyer literally lost his marbles when he saw it. He said it was some kind of regalia, and I then recalled that you said it was from your mother and…”

He stops and looks at Jongho—probably his face now looks too confused, he can’t process all of this that quick, he’s still not completely over the fact that he met the mysterious sexy space elf again—so he just quickly nods, urging him to continue.

“So I just… I felt bad,” he says in a voice a bit quieter than before. “He suggested me mad amount of money for it. Half of my crew watched me take this damn necklace back. San wouldn’t shut up for two hours, I think. But I just felt bad. You said it was from your mother and honestly I wish I had something like that too. And I don’t want to make enemies with some monarchs. So, all in all,” he then walks closer to him and hands the rosewind necklace on a palm to him, “Here it is.”

Jongho grabs it back before thinking and examines closely. No gems were taken out, no scratches, nothing changed. It’s his precious here, he’s right.

“Wow. Thank you, dude,” he can’t help but smile at the pirate; he’s just too happy right now.

He returns him the smile, but it’s not that wide and is more nervous. “I still feel bad. Like, not just because I robbed you of family relic, I beat you up too. Can I do something for you?”

Jongho is taken aback, he replies after a pause. “What?”

“I mean, like, how do I make it up to you? Can I?”

He really wants to reply something like ‘it’s fine, you don’t have to’, because he is a nice person. A noble one. Mom raised him as a generous ruler. He can’t exploit people like that, even if they are eager to do so. If she saw him, she would’ve told him off.

Thankfully, she is at the other side of the Haven and can’t see this.

“Buy me triple ice cream from _Chuu’s_,” he says as firmly as he can. Wow, that really sounded like an order from a true king. Ironic that he can’t tell that to mom, she would’ve been proud, he always sounded not strong enough when she was teaching him.

The pirate nods hesitantly. “I don’t even know your name, though. I’m Yeosang.”

“Jongho.”

“Wonderful,” he nods again. “Let’s go, Jongho?”

“Three green tea scoops for a beaten ass,” Yeosang sighs.

“I hate sweets,” Jongho says as he bites onto his ice cream and leans back on the seat. “This is a punishment for a lost battle.”

“I love sweets,” he turns his eyes away and looks down.

Jongho gets reminded of how Yeoreum once told him that flowers love sweet water—if you put some sugar in the vase, the bouquet would stay fresh longer. It’s amusing—technically a sentient flower loves sweets. She didn’t say anything about living flowers, he should ask her next time. But if he remembers something from bio classes correctly, they need sugar as well. That’s so cool.

Yeosang continues talking, not looking at him, “I’m really sorry. For robbing you and your ship. And for hurting you.”

Jongho, actually, doesn’t feel that angry anymore. He got free ice cream. He got his necklace back. Yeosang still has a bruise on his face when Jongho’s scratches almost healed. He doesn’t have anything to be that much angry for. To think of it, Jongho would do the same in his place, if they were boarding Exy’s ship, he would beat Yeosang’s ass too. And he doesn’t even know the guy at all, maybe he just had a hard childhood or something, maybe he’s not that evil, it’s obvious that he feels bad. Like Kihyun, who is short-tempered and potty-mouthed, but is actually a nice person. Or terribly mannered but kind Luda.

“Forget it, we’re good,” Jongho waves his hand, bites into ice cream and coughs again.

“Don’t eat it too fast,” Yeosang sounds like he said it out of a reflex, he sounds too distressed for it to be planned.

“It’s not ice cream,” he moves on the seat and sits straight, “Just my ribs hurt.”

Yeosang processes that slowly, and just looks at him with wide eyes, full of terror.

“It’s just a bruise,” Jongho quickly tells him, but it doesn’t make him look less scared. “I’m fine, seriously. Our medic said it will be gone in a few weeks.”

Yeosang still looks worried, but just sighs and nods.

They’re sitting in silence after that, mostly because Jongho still doesn’t know if Yeosang shares his wish to stay in contact. He doesn’t know how to properly explain this exact feeling, but he sure would be upset if they never see each other again. He would like to know him closer.

At some point Yeosang gets distracted and starts watching the window—the lively roadway and people walking behind it, a single crow, some ad at the billboard moving on the building across the street.

Jongho watches Yeosang.

It feels strange that he is enchanted; it’s most likely not his mind control skills now, there’s no reason to use them and Jongho doesn’t think anything is contradicting to his principles. He’s enchanted just because Yeosang is stunning and totally defeated him in their first meeting. He would have had held a grudge, he really hates losing, but he doesn’t. Maybe because Yeosang is the first person who was able to win him by strength. And because he is kinda cute with those big ears and doe eyes.

Well, fuck, Jongho has a crush.

He finally has time now to look at the flowers properly—a bunch of tiny pink ones blooming all across his cheeks like freckles, and light pink petals going up from the middle of his cheeks up to cheekbones; and a single one, ragged at sides but sticking tight, next to his left eye, making asymmetric pattern. One of the cheek petals visibly flakes off, so when Yeosang props his arm on the table to lean his chin on his palm, he touches that petal with one of his fingers. He immediately jolts to the straight posture and shivers, then throws a quick look at Jongho (who successfully pretends he wasn’t looking) and carefully peels that petal away from his face.

“Does that hurt?” Jongho asks. It’s a bit concerning how he tears out a part of his body and doesn’t make any sound.

Yeosang turns his face up and looks at him, blinking a few times. “What?”

“This,” Jongho gestures at his face, not sure how to explain what he meant.

He laughs breathily. “No, it’s like… I don’t know, have you ever get sunburnt and after healing your skin peels off?”

“No. I’ve never been under the sun, actually, he admits and then adds with too many fear in his voice: “It can burn?”

Yeosang just stares at him with an unreadable expression, then reaches out, handing him the petal. “You can look.” When Jongho carefully picks it up, he turns his palm upside down and nudges his hand with his. “Touch it too.”

Jongho hesitates a bit but brushes his fingers on the back of his hand anyway. His skin is colder than if he was human; it reminds him of actual petals by touch, like those giant roses Yeoreum always has in her shop. She actually told him she would throw him into space if she sees him touching it, but not like it stopped him from doing it anyway. The petal that got peeled off has the same texture, but dryer, it’s colored unevenly—one side has darker pink shade and the other has spots of the same color as his skin on the cheeks. He handles it back, and Yeosang hides it in one of the pockets of his jacket.

“Well, tell me about yourself, Jongho,” he says, leaning on the table closer to him, and props his chin on the hand again.

Jongho’s mind goes absolutely blank. First, even if it sounds a bit contradicting to the reality, he has nothing interesting to tell about himself. Second, Yeosang asked this and wants to know him closer. Nice. This starts to feel like an actual date. Jongho wants to believe it’s an actual date.

“What do you want to know, though?”

Yeosang laughs shortly. “Something besides you being an earthling noble named Jongho.”

“Nineteen, double major in law and universal history, also I can do pushups while an average sized anthropomorph sits on my back.” he lists in a serious tone. “It’s not believable in the context of our first meeting, but I’m serious.”

“Okay, but we won’t test that now,” Yeosang laughs again. “And not a single word about being a prince?”

“It’s lame.”

“What’s so lame about ruling a nation?”

Jongho struggles with replying to this. He always felt annoyed when he was referred like this, he dreads the responsibilities coming with it, he hates thinking of how he can’t do anything yet about the fact that his lands are somewhere far away roamed by giant insects terrorizing the part of his people who weren’t able to escape eighteen years ago. There are more negatives than positives. Maybe he wishes he hadn’t had that at all and lived a peaceful ignorant life.

“I just hate it. Let’s not go that deep right now,” he says.

“Okay. Sorry,” Yeosang mumbles. Jongho regrets a bit but the mood would’ve been ruined even more if he started talking about it. Then Yeosang continues asking him, now speaking in a normal voice again. “Double majoring and saving the world? What’s your secret, multitasking legend?

“The secret is… I skip classes all the time.”

They stare at each other for a brief moment before bursting into laughter simultaneously.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Jongho asks him.

“Thought you didn’t want to have a deep conversation,” Yeosang scrunches his nose and looks away. “I’m lame without my tragic villain backstory. But that will be unlocked on at least the third level of our friendship.”

“Oh, so I would be able to unlock it?” Jongho tries his best to not sound too desperate. A normal amount of enthusiasm.

Yeosang just smirks instead of actually replying. “So, are you staying here for a long time?”

“Hopefully not.”

“What about your ribs?” He actually sounds worried.

“I’m a galactic hero,” Jongho replies adamantly and straightens his shoulders. Presenting himself like that felt more honorable than talking about his monarchy status. Maybe it’s the difference of the reputation that has been earned and the status by birth.

“Okay, galactic hero,” Yeosang says with a playful tone, like light-heartedly making fun of him. Jongho feels something about that, actually. “Maybe you should get these attendance points.”

Jongho shrugs. “What about you?”

“I don’t go to college. So I don’t know, but— _Captain_,” he stutters here, apparently thinking he shouldn’t reveal her name. He isn’t aware yet Jongho knows it’s Exy. “Yeah, Captain said we should lay low for some time, so we separated. I’m here with Dawon and she is here for her med college. Hopefully I won’t stay here for a long time either, I’m already bored.”

“Is this why you took me out?” Jongho wiggles his eyebrows and only then realizes that it sounded absolutely stupid and not flirty at all.

“Maybe I did,” Yeosang smirks back at him, “And I would be still bored until we leave this fucking coke can with apartments, so maybe we should save each other from dying of boredom.”

Jongho sits in shock, watching Yeosang writing his number on the back of a receipt from his ice cream, trying to process that he got a number of The Mysterious Sexy Space Elf Pirate and a promise to meet again. What a day, he got his necklace back, got free ice cream and a potential date. Maybe he’s not that much of a loser after all.

Maybe it’s a start of something. Until Kihyun and Exy find out.

—

Jongho is still not going home—actually, mid-way he thinks that he’s not ready to see his mom being worried about his scratches and bruised ribs—so he calls Yunho to ask him if he can stay at his place. He reaches him on the third try, about to give up, and tries to explain it to him through loud music and other people interrupting: _‘Everyone, shut the fuck up!’_ from Yunho himself—yes, he’s very welcome here—Seonghwa leans close and says breathily _‘Tell Jjongie I said hi’_—but they’re having a party right now—Soobin yells _‘OMG, tell him to join us!’_ at the background—so he might need to burst through the wall.

He makes it without breaking the door, Xiao opens it for him and immediately walks back to the living room; the party surprisingly looks civil, it’s the playlist of old dance music from the 21st century and Yunho’s and Wooyoung’s natural loudness that makes it crazy.

_ **** _

_**not a mysterious sexy space elf pirate  
**_ _Hope you saved me as something not suspicious._

_**You  
**_ _oh totally_

Soobin literally plomps on the sofa next to him, losing her form for a moment, but quickly restoring it as he hides his phone back in his pocket and takes a can of beer from her not-quite-yet-a-hand.

“A potion for your wounds, brave knight,” she says, a bit muffled as her neck is still deformed.

Jongho snorts and opens the can. He takes a sip and hears Seonghwa’s exasperated groan from the kitchen, followed with Yunho’s laugh; then Xiao walks in, and she has a wide smile on her face.

“What’s that?” Wooyoung asks her.

“Yunho fucked up the plates order on the shelf or something like that, and Seonghwa called him a ‘miserably indecent abomination of a human population’,” she says, shaking her head, and sits on the armrest of the chair he’s sitting at. Wooyoung snorts in response; Jongho absentmindedly watches how the snake-like scales on her legs reflect the lava lamp lights—Dayoung got it for Yunho’s birthday two years ago because he wouldn’t shut up about wanting one—and for some reason thinks about Yeosang. He’s not thinking anything remotely coherent, more like just being fascinated with the fact that he exists in the close proximity. He’s right here, all bewitching and alluring, and Jongho has his number. Nice.

Wooyoung is about to say something—probably about Seonghwa’s obsession with chair positions and mugs order—but then Seonghwa walks in, holding six big plates, and puts it on the table in front of them, then Yunho enters, skipping, and jumps on a sofa next to Jongho, so he grabs his opened car of beer from the table and has to sit on the only free chair.

Seonghwa stares at Jongho for few seconds, blinks slowly and asks, “I thought you had lost your necklace.”

“I thought so too,” he laughs, shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “But I got it back.”

“Just tell us the story,” Xiao says. She almost cuts him off, so Jongho needs a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Right,” he says at first and nods, “I was taking a walk after I checked up on _Mon Star’s_ lovely staff, and met him outside. I was ready for a revanche, like, now I’ll beat his ass, but he was like ‘don’t beat my ass, I’m so sorry, here’s your necklace.” He thinks a bit if he should mention it again, but the beer already convinces him to flex his dubious smoothness. And Soobin is giving him a weird look, like she’s feeling he didn’t tell all of it yet. “And I told him I’ll forgive him if he gets me ice cream.”

“That’s sexy,” Wooyoung immediately comments. Xiao nods enthusiastically. “This is a sick story to tell people when they ask later how did you meet.”

“Please tell me you at least got his number,” Yunho sounds a bit desperate, as if if Jongho told him he didn’t he would literally cry.

“Of course,” Jongho smirks but warily side-eyes Seonghwa—he expects him to become scandalized over this as usual, start a lecture about his responsibilities and all the stuff like that—but he’s just looking at him with an amused expression.

“Kihyun will literally kill you,” he says and shakes his head.

Jongho actually laughs out of shock. “I thought you were the one responsible in our crew.”.

“First of all, I can’t stand Kihyun,” he points at him with a finger, but still holding that beer can, then folds out another one, “Second, I think they would be a very valuable addition to our crew.”

“How?” Wooyoung asks. “Weren’t we trying to get Exy in jail?”

“Actually, our main target was San, we were searching for the chest of gems he stole.” Seonghwa then takes a small pause to think and adds, “We’re not even sure it was him who stole it. Exy is shady, but isn’t a criminal in the Haven Coalition. I’m adamant she is against the Empire.”

Jongho is a bit shocked as he connects the dots. Nobody is against him interacting with Yeosang. Except for Kihyun, probably, but he’s too boring to understand this, and his rage would actually add some adventure.

“Like I said, they are like… harmless,” Seonghwa continues with an over-excited voice, “Who the fuck steals three damn blasters, all the batteries for them, Wi-Fi router, a single electric knife and a bag of tangerines? I’d think they wanted to steal our ship, since they sent that guy in the engineering dock and hacked the control panel, but that’s what they left with.”

“Maybe they failed with this,” Xiao suggests. “They tried to steal, but it went wrong.”

“Well, Jongho,” Wooyoung leans in front of him, “Now you have two missions: get a date and find it out.”

Then they hear a door ring, and Yunho, with a loud ‘that’s our food!’, jumps up from his seat and literally sprints to the door.

Jongho thinks about Yeosang for the rest of the party.

—

The next two days are annoyingly uneventful—they sleep almost through the whole Sunday, next day Yunho and Seonghwa leave for classes (with the latter trying to convince Jongho to do the same but unfortunately failing miserably against Jongho reminding him he’s injured)—and despite the fact that Yeosang is almost constantly on his mind Jongho doesn’t know if he should text him. Should he text him for a stupid talk or he gave him the number solely for him to be able to reach out and make up for that boarding incident?

This problem solves itself on Tuesday morning, after Jongho walks back from the grocery with a small bag of chips—because he was too bored at home—and Yeosang is waiting for him, standing right on the synthetic lawn in front of the building where Yunho and Seonghwa’s apartment is, leaning on the fencing with his back.

“Are you stalking me?” Jongho asks as he walks to the fencing and stands in front of him.

“Med college, remember?” he says, nodding somewhere behind the building—there is a med college two blocks away. “Dawon asked me to get her something at the grocery store, because she’s too busy studying to take an actual lunch break, and when I was walking back I saw you walking to the store from here. So I thought I should check up on you.”

“Very sweet of you.”

Yeosang scrunches his nose out of embarrassment and Jongho feels like he’s dying inside. This is the exact definition of ‘pure devastation’.

“She told me that bruised ribs heal better if you stay active,” Yeosang continues, “Not super active like sports and sparring with wayward squargarians, just taking some walks. Are you free right now?” And he smiles a bit, narrowing his eyes, like a cat.

“Are you asking me out?” Jongho can’t help but laugh. He regrets it immediately as the bruise hurts; he bites his lip to keep it unnoticed.

“I’m just making it up for beating your ass,” Yeosang leans on the fencing with his arms and smirks, “Well, unless—”

“I’m not against it, actually.”

Jongho really put all of his self-control into this, he was so nervous of actually saying it, but it’s so worth it, when Yeosang stops looking all smug and cheeky and actually gets taken aback with this boldness. He’s not getting obviously embarrassed, but there is a crack in his confident aura for sure—oh, he definitely didn't expect to actually get something for his constant flirtatious attitude towards him.

“Alright,” Yeosang finally breaks the silence and joins Jongho on the other side of the fencing, literally climbing up the metal bars and jumping over it. “Have you ever been at Arcadia?”

The train station is pretty crowded even when it’s not rush hour, so they still have to stand in the queue to get tickets. Jongho isn’t complaining though, he has the time to enjoy the architecture—he’s not going here often, as he lives in college campus and a walk to his mom’s apartment takes half an hour at most.

If he remembers correctly from the history classes, the felines had to reconstruct most of the important buildings of the Haven—train stations among them, including Athena level where they are right now—so it’s in their classic style. Jongho isn’t great at architecture, but he once heard Seonghwa and Yeonjung discussing it—something about the similarities in their cultures—and he said Felin classical architecture reminded him of Byzantine architecture, with it’s high spheric ceilings and shiny colorful mosaics. He also said crystal gems’ architecture looks like Gothic architecture. Jongho has no idea what is Byzantia or who are the Goths (he wasn’t talking about these humans who used to wear all black and talk about death and vampires, he figures), but it stuck to him because he thought it was interesting. All of them—earthlings, felines, damarines-slimes, dalbitese-shapeshifters, squargarians-elves, xiebeans-bunnies, hesseves-snakes, cenabians-merfolk, even crystal gems and insectoids—are similar to each other in a way. And humans in the past used to think there is either no life outside of Earth or the aliens are too different from us and we would not be able to peacefully interact. There were so many movies about aliens attacking Earth, but in fact it was very peaceful. A group of explorers just travelled through mass relay and ended in Alpha Centauri’s solar system, where they were met by shapeshifters. And they were so worried about scaring them away that three ambassadors who were sent to greet them scanned from far away and changed their forms before meeting to ‘familiar image’ instead of a bright energy cloud—’The insectoid demigoddess Miku Hatsune’, Dwayne ‘Rock’ Jonhnson and a girl with a cat head. And it went well, and earthlings were even acknowledged to be developed enough to join other nations as a part of the Haven Coalition. Cool. Jongho thinks he was born in a pretty good time—it’s been about a century since Pluto mass relay discovery and everyone is comfortable with each other, but it would be great if there weren’t that problem with Empire Union that is trying to start autocracy in the Milky Way. But all in all, he is happy he was born now, able to experience other forms of life and their cultures, including fighting them—understanding enemy is important to defeating it.

After they get on the train and sit next to each other, Yeosang apparently notices that he’s deep in thought, so he asks him, “What’s on your mind?”

Jongho thinks he would like to hear his opinion on this. “I think I would be so bored if I was born earlier.”

“Oh, same,” he nods.

“I sometimes think that I would literally die if I was born before the Pluto mass relay discovery.”

“Same,” Yeosang nods again, but more excitedly, “I mean, if I was born before we left Squargaria, if I had to live around those plants for all of my life…” He clenches his fist and sighs.

“I totally feel you. Earthlings are so boring,” Jongho turns his face to Yeosang and catches his eyes. It still feels like a battle, as if he fights his annoying smug aura—if he lets it intimidate him, it would be a defeat, and Jongho hates losing. It’s actually a bit of a problem as it makes him go to the ends of the galaxy and lose moral principles over video games, but right now it’s not an option. He has to win over these elf charms.

It’s kinda hard when Yeosang’s snarky attitude actually makes Jongho feel something. Especially when he looks him right in the eye.

“Why?” Yeosang asks.

Jongho shrugs. “We don’t have scales, we can’t change our form, we’re made of proteins, we don’t have cat ears or, like... “ he moves his eyes from Yeosang’s and examines his face thoroughly—that ragged at edges petal near his left eye, pink forget-me-nots and magnolias blooming on his cheeks, cherry shiny lips. “Flowers growing out of our faces. We are so plain looking compared to you all.”

Yeosang smirks. “Oh, you’re an alienfucker.”

“Stop.”

“Chill, I’m joking,” he laughs and turns away to lean back on the seat. “Actually, I think a lot of other nations share that. I’ve heard that these face flowers are cute from all of my crewmates.”

“Your crew is probably way more diverse.”

“We have a crystal gem, how’s that?” he smirks again. “Between us, I personally think earthlings are adorable.”

Jongho gets too surprised with this and doesn’t yet know what to reply. “Earthlings,” he just repeats mindlessly.

“Yes, earthlings,” Yeosang nudges him with his elbow, “You are an earthling, so you are also adorable, dummy.”

Jongho actually feels his face flushing and hopes it’s not noticeable. “You are just trying to make me feel better after I called us boring.”

Yeosang called him adorable… what the fuck.

“No, seriously,” he says and shifts a bit closer when explaining, so their knees now are brushing together, “We all have pets but I’ve never seen anyone but earthlings treat them as a part of the family. Others are always like… ‘This is my pet, I protect them and feed them’, but you’re always calling them your children or brothers. And your friends or siblings accept that and refer to them as their nieces or nephews… Also you get mad when you want to sneeze but don’t.”

Jongho doesn’t know what to reply to this either—he never thought about it like that—so he just turns to the window and watches the buildings pass by until they enter the tunnel, hyperaware of how close Yeosang sits to him. Maybe he should think about it too—in a world where the talking flowers and the cat people coexist, being plain-looking might be a thing that makes you stand out; besides the species’ behavior is also should be considered a trait that might make it unique.

Jongho definitely never was at Arcadia—of course he had heard about it, but the Haven is colossal in its size, probably not even ten percent of its citizens were everywhere here; besides, it’s near the Garden District, that is kind of divided from the rest of the level with some invisible border, the atmosphere here is for some reason not very welcome. It’s mostly squargarians who ran away from their home planet with ruined ecology and chose Haven instead of colonies on other planets, so it feels a bit weird being here. But of course he had heard about Arcadia, the only place where you can see cenabian algae in the pond beside the trees from the forests of Dalbit. A giant botanical garden serving as an amusement park and a flower farm, free to visit.

Jongho regrets he never went here before despite a number of his friends raving about it any time they got a chance as soon as they enter Arcadia. It’s really a patch of something actually natural in the synthetic Haven, the only unnatural thing being the lighting as none of the nearest stars can reach here. Actual rocks, real soil and living plants.

Yeosang takes him on a path with the trees labeled as red spruces—totally not red but green, with some kind of weird spikes instead of actual leaves on top of that—and at some point he starts walking faster and grabs Jongho’s hand to make him keep his pace. They pass that pond with the water that looks bright cyan because of the algae and a tree similar to willow, with a thin crooked trunk, grey bark and transparent glass leaves hanging down like a thread curtain—Jongho heard about it from Wooyoung, he mentioned it a few times as one of the reasons he should visit Arcadia sometimes, other reasons were a sunflower field, the red forest of Hessevia and a flower farm.

They pass a few installations Jongho can guess—a row of glasshouses and metal frames he figures out to be a flower farm, another section of green plants from Earth, this time with familiar flat broad leaves, not needles, then an open field of cotton candy pink grass—before they come to the place Yeosang actually wanted him to see. A big building with no walls but columns, with dark green trees and bushes leaning to them. There is a road with dim neon pink lighting, it should be a pretty atmospheric place to take a walk.

“This is one of my favorite places here,” Yeosang says as he lets go of Jongho’s hand and turns around to face him. “I mean, there’s a lot of nice places, but I thought you should see this.”

“How nice of you,” Jongho tries his best not to sound too strained, but alas—he quickly covers himself with a fake cough.

What did he learn today? First, Yeosang thinks earthlings are cute. Second, Jongho included. Third, he talked to his to-be doctor friend about his injury—probably because he was worried about him. Fourth, this is not a date unless Jongho wants so as well, and since Jongho is absolutely up for it, it is a date. Fifth, this—Yeosang was thinking of some place to show him. Too much to unfold here, and it all feels like being hit with a plank on the back of your head. Taken aback, disoriented and wondering what the hell just happened.

“I mean, these are from Earth,” Yeosang continues and takes a step to the garden’s direction, “So I thought about you.” He abruptly stops and looks at him, eyes wide in embarrassment, and adds quickly, “I mean, like, you’re from Earth too… Like, an earthling. I know you’re from a colony. Okay, this is a bit—”

“No, I get it,” Jongho interrupts his blabbering and smiles a bit. “I would like to see it.”

He actually means it—this is such a strange feeling, grasping the bits of what remained of Earth’s old ecology and culture. Jongho never was here and never planned to visit here. Not with that wind and heat. Looking at the pictures in the history book though was giving him some kind of peace. Knowing that some time long ago these castles and forests were alive and people had seen it. Maybe Jongho’s great-great-great-grandparents saw the Eiffel tower with their eyes. Maybe it was Seonghwa, Juyeon, Yunho or Wooyoung’s ancestors. Jongho wants to see the plants and think that maybe one of his distant ancestors was able to see how it looked under the light of that stupid orange flame ball they called Sun.

There’s nothing outstanding about anything related to Earth, but it brings him weird comfort. It doesn’t make him go bonkers fucking yonkers like Bona goes over the mention of ancient Earth shows, and he doesn’t even really like anything related to Earth. It’s just another complicated feeling he can’t quite figure out, and doesn’t really want to—he just knows he appreciates the thought and would be happy to see it.

Especially with Yeosang.

When he realizes he holds out a hand for him, Jongho barely resist the urge to slap himself across the face to get back to his senses, but manages to grab it.

Jongho, of course, saw Earth plants up close, a lot of humans have some at home—Seonghwa had a dracaena before Yunho forgot to water it and left to die—and Mon Star mostly sell earth flowers as they sell well due to the fact you can’t get them at Earth anymore. This is a bit different, when he walks on a stone road with grass peeking out between the cracks, surrounded by the branches intervened like the trees are holding hands, and giant wide leaves—there is a plant with leaves of the size of Jongho’s chest. And flowers, so many big bright pretty flowers. 

There is a bench next to the pond with water lilies and a tiny creek, so they sit here—Jongho gets hypnotized by the colorful reflections of neon lighting on the water, and it doesn’t feel awkward to not talk at all, and he just enjoys the sound of the water and ribbits from a frog. Hopefully it’s a real frog, Jongho always thought they’re one of the cutest animals from Earth.

“You really had never seen the sun?” Yeosang suddenly says. His voice would’ve sounded absolutely normal, but Jongho pays too much attention to it—there’s a hidden undertone of him being sorry that he missed such a sight in his life. A great sight of a fucking giant burning gas sphere. The sphere that apparently can burn your skin.

Jongho tries to be interested in that but his mind is too occupied with Yeosang and the way his face is lit by the same neon lighting from the small building next to them. He just wants to hold his hand again. “I mean, it’s not a big deal.”

“Have you ever been on a planet?”

“There are like fifteen planets that are in their respective suns’ habitable zones in the whole Milky Way and twelve of them are where the insectoids’ main military bases are.” Jongho sounds offended a bit, when he isn’t actually. “We are in the middle of a civil war and a race for survival, do you think I’ve had time?”

“Damn,” Yeosang rolls his eyes and leans back on the bench. “I was just asking, no need to get defensive.”

Jongho shrugs. “Did you see it, by the way?”

Yeosang snorts. “Of course. That’s why I was talking about it. I’ve seen it, I think it’s cool and now I want you to see it too.”

Mentally Jongho leans back on the bench too, hides his face in his hands and yells with all the strength he has in his body. Fucking Mysterious Sexy Space Elf Yeosang, damn you and your straightforwardness. If it’s just a misunderstanding due to the wide cultural gap, Jongho literally would die. He will launch himself directly into the Sun.

“Bro, be honest,” he gives up and decides to ask him. Two can play this game, if Yeosang is going to be straightforward with him, then Jongho would too. Even if he feels like his anxiety has him in a chokehold, he still blurts out all of this before he has a moment to think what the hell is he doing. Or about the fact he just called Yeosang ‘bro’. “What are you trying to do? With all of this, how we spend time together and stuff you constantly say?”

Yeosang snorts and leans closer to him, eyes dark in the shadowy surroundings, with a mischievous smile. “I already told you, I’m just making it up for you, bun.” Then he lightly flicks him on the top of his nose with a butterfly-like finger touch, and gets up from the bench.

Jongho almost reminds him about that _‘unless’_, but doesn’t have time to—while he contemplates if he should press the topic, Yeosang walks to the path that would take him out if this part of the garden, so he has to catch up with him too. 

—

Jongho thinks it’s either funny as hell or unbearably adorable how easy is it to break Yeosang’s annoying facade. Damn his competitiveness and ability to turn everything into a race that he must win to survive. It’s the reason he constantly tries to embarrass Yeosang by being bold as well—maybe otherwise he would’ve just acted plain stupid and dropped a few lame pick-up lines.

He likes Yeosang already after only a week of knowing each other, and he wants to turn it all around and win him too, so Yeosang would think of him as a Not-Really-Mysterious But-Still-Sexy Space Human Prince, or something like that.

It’s less satisfying over the texts, but he can imagine the crack in his attitude that reflects in his eyes—a spark of excitement mixed with bewilderment—and it’s absolutely priceless. It’s a small pause between the _Seen at:_ status change and an appearance of the bubble with dots indicating the response being typed in, rarely a row of ellipses or two question marks before the topic gets drastically changed. It’s enough to make Jongho feel accomplished, and on top of that he gets a new piece of information, as Yeosang moves on to some stories from his life to save himself out of this.

A long talk about the plants on the way from Arcadia to Athena level, then three days of small text conversations about everything and nothing at the same time—Jongho wants to say he knows Yeosang but at the same time there’s just too many secrets so he can’t say the mysterious sexy space elf isn’t mysterious anymore. Elves have a somewhat similar age span to earthlings, so they’ve been around in this life for the same time (though Yeosang is a bit older) and it’s also helping with getting closer—for example, he still struggles with Xiao, she’s like ten rounds older than all of the humans in their squad, which is similar to them befriending a human grandma. He kind of expected that from how he understood all his meme references, but still, it’s more of the fact that he finally has some information. Besides that he doesn’t know a lot—grew up in a colony, moved in to the Haven around 2nd grade after it was attacked, dropped out of engineering high school after meeting Exy and getting interested in space travelling. The piracy was a side bonus coming with exploring the galaxy and working with a degree he never actually got, though he briefly hinted he has been familiar with the criminal underworld in space since early teens—Jongho doesn’t press on this but figures out that’s how life for colony refugees might be, he himself had a choice just because he is noble. Besides that Yeosang can skateboard but rarely gets into the places with actual gravity to do it for fun, and for some reason knows at least one fact about literally every animal in this galaxy, and it’s also very endearing to think about.

Mysterious sexy space elf is about his age, is a big nerd about creatures of other planets and engineering (the rant about how he wants to upgrade Exy’s ship was so hot) and is funny as hell. Perfect. Jongho might fuck around and fall in love.

__**not a mysterious sexy space elf pirate**  
_…Anyway._  
_Exy invited me to her. Like, for no reason, because I’m her ‘favorite baby’ or something like that._  
_Also she invited you too.  
_ _Don’t ask why._

_**You  
**_ _damn i was about to ask_

What are the risks? Especially, considering Jongho is pretty strong, so he can fight with them and escape, if something. Especially, considering Jongho trusts Yeosang already.

So he shoots an _‘ok i’m up’_ message, gets the time he is supposed to be at the spaceport in the return and goes to pack his bag—not like he had unpacked a lot since he was living here temporarily.

“Where. Are. You. Going,” Seonghwa asks him as soon as he shows his nose out of the room the next morning. He and Yunho sit together on the couch with identical poses of crossed legs and folded hands on their knees, the only difference being only that Yunho looks like he is going to burst out laughing at any given moment, Seonghwa on the contrary is dead serious and pronounces every single syllable with the clearance compared to the parent who noticed their grounded child leave.

“To the grocery,” Jongho answers him, not stopping his walk to the door where his shoes are. His every step is followed by two pairs of attentive eyes, and it’s almost more funny than annoying.

“Buy bread before you get home,” Yunho yells when Jongho opens the door with the keys. He actually gives himself a mental note to do so and hopes he won’t forget—even if Jongho comes back in a week, they wouldn’t let him in unless he has bread with himself.

It hits him only when he sees Yeosang at the porch of the spaceport—despite his height he doesn’t get lost in the crowd because of his bright pink hair—that he really just packed his things and is ready to go absolutely anywhere Yeosang would take him. He didn’t even ask him where is Exy’s home. Maybe he got a bit lost in the realization of the fact that he takes him out for his friend’s place at another planet or station. That wasn’t his smartest move, undoubtedly.

“So, guess where are we going?” Yeosang is visibly excited. Probably the most excited and actually happy in a pure way Jongho ever saw him—not like it was a lot of moments but still, a very satisfying sight anyway. 

“Literally no idea.”

Yeosang’s smile gets wider as he says, “Gliese solar system.”

Jongho stands in the middle of the spaceport for solid two minutes watching Yeosang skipping to the gates like an overexcited kindergarten child.

Visiting one of three free exoplanets in their respective sun’s habitable zone was the thing he expected the least.

Going through mass relays was actually Jongho’s least favorite thing in space trips even though he likes travelling; the feeling of falling and uncomfortable shaking the whole time the ship is at the space corridor, it doesn’t scare him like it happens with Seonghwa—who is, despite being a skilled pilot, is terribly scared of heights, so he said this always makes him anxious—but it still never is a pleasant experience. Five minutes of this stress and then they get into the galaxy so the ride gets way more comfortable for the next four hours left. One of three Gliese stars sometimes get into the windows and paint the insides of the ship to cold deep orange shade, and Jongho thinks of asking Yeosang if the actual sunlight looks the same from the atmosphere—so he can say he saw it and it’s not impressive—but exactly on the very moment he’s about to ask him he feels him leaning on his shoulder in his sleep. Smart actually, this way these four hours will pass faster.

Jongho falls asleep fifteen minutes later, leaning with his cheek on the top of Yeosang’s head.

He saw Exy on posters at the police station—way more younger than now, maybe five years or about, long brown hair tied up in a bun, now cut at her shoulders level and bleached out to chicken yellow, her tired eyes being the only thing this woman shares with that mugshot. But in real life she’s exuding so much warmth and comfort that Jongho actually immediately forgets she’s a criminal with a pretty long record of brigandage and conning as soon as she smiles at them both and goes for a hug to Yeosang, then even for him.

“Come on, we’re in-laws,” she whispers to him when she sees him hesitating, and Jongho gives up, melting into her arms, as she carefully holds him, mindful of his ribs. Honestly, he hasn't had a nice hug in ages. Though he can’t help it but watch Yeosang’s reaction nervously—he checks a zip on his bag, not looking at them, probably hadn’t heard what she said.

She talks with Yeosang a bit about how has he been lately and asks about Dawon as well; Jongho stands here not actually listening but letting the tone of Yeosang’s voice to hypnotize him—it’s unbearably soft, without that teasing smugness he usually has when he talks to him. It’s not hurting and he’s not wishing he talked to him like that too—like he already said, he thinks it’s hot—or maybe he isn’t ready to hear him talking to him like that.

Yeosang is just hypnotizing in general, and who knows if it’s because of his elf charms or because Jongho is crushing embarrassingly hard.

Exy excuses herself for a moment and tells them to leave to a bus stop already, she needs to pick up her own bag from the cloakroom, and they start walking to the direction of the entrance slowly, so she won’t be searching for them too much.

“Actually, there’s that thing,” Yeosang stops him in front of the spaceport entrance and grabs his wrist. “Exy thinks we’re dating.”

Jongho is going to pluck out all of his hair one by one. This mysterious sexy space elf is driving him crazy with his pathological inability to actually be discreet about anything. So he was raving to his boss about Jongho, she figured out they’re a thing, but he’s been _no-homo_-ing him to his face for like ten days. Maybe he should still ask for a revanche battle and give him a good slap on the face. Right here. Stop, no, this is too violent, probably.

“Of course she does,” Jongho actually laughs out of shock. “Are we not?”

“Jongho, please, if you make me talk about any emotion, I’m going to pass out for real,” he almost whines. “Let’s not do it right here now.”

He gets distracted before he even processes what he was just told—Yeosang pushes the door and lets him walk out. And Jongho sees the sunlight for the first time.

He is not impressed at all.

It’s blinding him so he can’t even see and he has to hold a palm to his eyes. Everything is too bright and it feels like something warm is being pressed against his cheeks, but in an annoying way rather than comforting. He turns to the side to see Yeosang—he seems literally the same as in Haven’s artificial lighting, but he has an expression such content Jongho feels a lump in his throat, but in a positive sense. Like his chest is about to burst with bubbles. Like he is so fond of this tiny space sentient flower he is going to throw up. Yeosang smiles softly with eyes closed, letting the sunlight warm his cheeks, like this is the best thing ever, and Jongho for the first time feels a terrible urge to kiss him just because he doesn’t know how else to express it, not because Yeosang is constantly drawing his attention to his lips. Now he gets hyper aware of the fact that he is crushing, and crushing hard.

“Well? Do you regret already you hadn’t seen it before?” Yeosang says with the same annoying smug expression, but his voice is way softer than before, when he was teasing him. Now he genuinely wants to know, just uses the familiar wording.

Jongho shrugs. “I can’t see shit. But it’s okay, I guess.”

_Sun is boring, but you’re really fucking pretty, so I won’t complain_, he thinks.

Yeosang doesn’t seem to be upset or anything, but he’s about to say something—and at this exact moment as he opens his mouth Exy appears next to them as if out of nowhere, she caught up with them too silently.

“Okay, let’s get home quick, I left Mingi here,” she pats them both on the shoulders and pushes to the direction of the bus stop. Jongho bites a laugh back—she is really short and it’s decreasing her threatening image. But strong though.

“You left Mingi alone at home?” Yeosang doesn’t really ask her, more like sighs, exasperated, as if he couldn’t believe she did it.

“I had to. His ship had broken, then he heard that you are coming over and decided to ask you for help.”

Yeosang just sighs again.

Gravity feels a bit uncomfortable when he actually starts walking—Jongho figures out it’s different from artificial averaged gravity used in Haven and space ships—so he keeps constantly tripping over the air all the time they make it to the bus stop. Yeosang notices that and slows down to walk beside him, pretending he does it unintentionally, and it’s funny. Exy walks in front of them, scrolling through her portable hologram panel—it’s pale and Jongho can only guess what she’s looking for, but it looks like a bank app interface which would make sense.

Jongho also never was in a bus before—there are none in the Haven, this whole day is just an experience already—but it’s not different from space public transport or Haven trains. It’s shaking more than a straight railroad and is way slower, but after a long way to the first stop in the border of the spaceport territory he starts thinking that’s the charm. He’s sitting alone at the window, Yeosang and Exy took seats in front of him and quietly talk about their pirate things, but it’s inaudible over the noise of the bus and someone talking on the radio—in gliesian, similar to shapeshifters’ language as far as he knows, since Gliese used to be in an alliance with Dalbit since ancient times. He heard Bona talk few times in dalbitese, and even though there’s not much to compare he still has a feeling it’s similar in pronunciation and flow.

The space port is behind some kind of a forest, the road is in between two rows of warm yellow, like chicken feathers, trees, and the sky is colored differently from the pics he saw in the books—this sky is not colored evenly in a light blue color, it’s a gradient from white to pale blue to white again, as Gliese has three suns and Shaula is at the opposite side.

Jongho falls asleep again, lulled by rhythmic noise of the engine and yellow spots of leaves passing behind the window.

Mingi intimidates him for exactly three seconds, as they just stare at each other. Jongho never met a gem before and actually was wondering how does it feel to see something that isn’t actually here physically—the body made of light, somehow solid but disintegrated easily, around the gem heart inside of it—yeah, he’s glowing softly, but it’s more like an artificial lamp light than the sun they were under just now. Jongho knows absolutely nothing about gems, but he heard Exy has an alexandrite in her team and actually googled how it looks—spectre of dark green, with brown, red and purple sparks, more prominent when polished—and Mingi’s appearance gives it out, he’s in all black but his hair is a gradient of dark and bright green and red streaks; and his face is all acute angles and sharp lines on the edge of the jaw and the shape of his nose. Jongho actually feels kind of small, especially after remembering that crystal gems are the strongest and most ancient race if the universe.

“Here he goes,” Mingi’s voice is vivid and friendly even though low and raspy; he gives him a high-five and Jongho actually feels it—the illusion of him actually being a stone, his hand is really cold. But he has a very benevolent smile, so maybe he’s not getting crushed today.

Yeosang meanwhile leaves his bag in the other room and comes back, then stands with his arms crossed while Jongho just tries to sneakily stare at Mingi out of interest for another species he never met before. He gets snapped out of it when Yeosang coughs and tells Mingi, “Let’s go see what’s with your baby before you’ll be late.”

Mingi snorts. “I have a whole day ahead. You wanna send me away that bad?”

Yeosang just rolls his eyes but then gives him a small smirk. “You know I’m literally obsessed with your ship. Never had my hand in a crystal gem engine before, I’m excited.”

“Jongho can help me on the kitchen then,” Exy smiles a bit and moves her eyes on him, adding, “Right?”

Jongho shrugs—he’s not good with this stuff but it’s not like he has anything else to do. He would feel bad if he leaves to watch Yeosang fixing an engine, that he wouldn’t probably even be able to properly see.

“Well then,” Mingi claps his hands together and nods in the direction of the apartment door while looking at Yeosang and leaves—the elf follows him, but before leaving shoots Jongho a somewhat-apologetic smile, but it’s so brief Jongho starts feeling he saw it wrong almost immediately.

The kitchen is bright because of a giant window (and, to be honest, of many sources of lights, there's four suns in the sky) and light color of the walls, and it’s somewhat chilly, so it clears Jongho’s head of any drowsiness after a number of naps he took in the span of a day. Exy walks up to the sink and takes out the plates that were stored at the shelf above it.

“I ordered pizza,” she says. “Hope you’re okay with that, we’re the only ones who’s gonna eat. I went with simple pepperoni.”

Jongho almost asks why are they the only ones who eat and then remembers—Mingi is solidified light, Yeosang is a flower. Makes sense. So he nods but a bit hesitantly. “Yeah. We kind of survive off the pizza and my friend’s native earthling family recipes’ food if he’s in a good mood, so I’m absolutely up for it.”

Exy hums in agreement and turns on the tap.

It’s quiet for a few minutes, just the rhythmic sound of her rinsing the plates and water running, before she starts speaking again. “He is happy, you know.”

Jongho isn’t dense all the time. He wouldn’t call himself dense, he is just awkward. Like right now, he guesses what she means pretty fast.

“I’m glad.” It’s a bit of a stupid answer, but he doesn’t know what exactly to tell her.

“It’s great to see him getting out of that shell,” she says and leans on the table with her back for a brief second to look at him and smile over the joke she’s about to tell. “Bark, I’d say.”

Jongho laughs. “He’s not normally like that, I suppose?”

Exy shakes her head, indicating a negative response. “It took like a few weeks to tame him, and he still prefers checking up on engines rather than spend time with the crew. It’s not like anyone presses him, me and Dawon are also not very social, just…” she pauses and purses her lips together. “It’s weirdly satisfying to see him like that. Shiny eyes and interest written all over the face.”

It stings a bit, as Jongho thinks—he did something that took them years in barely two weeks. It makes him feel weirdly honored but sad that he steals Yeosang’s attention from his best friends. The realization of his—this one tiny, compared to the rest of the universe, boy named Choi Jongho’s—relevance and importance. The universe is huge and colorful and interesting, and Jongho got Yeosang’s attention on him. That stunning space elf with flowers on his face’s attention.

Exy turns off the water and gets a towel from the table to dry off the plates and glasses, all while humming some kind of song, not aware that she sent Jongho in a state of extreme crisis. She’s probably not even thinking that it was something important she had said, but to him it was really life-changing.

Maybe sometimes it shouldn’t be said discreetly. Even though communication is the key, some feelings just can’t be told across the languages, especially such dry as artificial universal language. They all might coexist but the cultural gap is so giant. It misses most of the idioms and ancient terms, having a relevant and uncomplicated vocabulary for simplicity. Jongho can’t explain what he feels and what he wants with it. He would’ve slipped to international earthling in the hope that sentiment would transcend languages, but it’s unlikely. And his accent is so horrible that he would never force anyone to hear it.

There is a gap in basic knowledge and anatomy that hadn’t been filled yet. Everyone just found a way to coexist, but didn’t bother to learn about each other. How do crystal gems make the photons solid in an anthropomorphic form? What are slimes’ bones made of? There are scientists who know all that, but it would be fair if it was common knowledge studied at school. Jongho knows his bones are made of calcium and collagen and the muscles keep his body in the same shape. Crystal gems know how they keep their body shape. Slimes know what are their bones made of.

“And Jongho.” When he jerks his head to look at her, she narrows her eyes with a lazy smile and adds, “When I threaten people I mean it. Dare to break his heart and I will not hesitate to add regicide to my criminal record.”

_Do elves have hearts, though?_ Jongho doesn’t feel threatened as he should. She is smiling warmly at him, while rinsing the glass in the water, so it feels just like as if they all are regular humans and he’s just having a cute talk with Yeosang’s mother about how she hopes Jongho is a good match. Exy isn’t that much older. If she doesn’t have at least a taser tucked under her belt it’s a surprise. He should be scared of this, but he doesn’t. As if he trusted himself to do this—maybe he will do his best to succeed.

“I won’t,” he replies firmly. “I promise. I don’t want it too.”

“Good.” Exy smiles warmly and takes the plates to the common room.

There’s not much happens after that—they have a dinner, Mingi leaves, Exy suggests them places to visit while they’re here; it’s pretty late even though it’s bright outside, so they’re not going anywhere today.

Then later Yeosang walks up to him lying on the couch and silently reaches out his hand to him. Jongho doesn’t notice him immediately but when he doesn’t get an explanation after he looks up to him, he accepts that and gets up without a word as well. Yeosang leads him out of the apartment and takes him up the stairs to the hall with a low ceiling—they both have to lower a bit. Jongho guesses what it is when Yeosang lets go of his hand and stops in front of a small metal door to fight with a rusty latch, and a weak chilly wind hits them both as he pushes it away, stepping out on the roof.

The lighting outside is different now and he noticed it getting redder for the past hour, but he hadn’t even looked at the sun—also bright red with a big orange circle and two smaller ones near it still hurts his eyes and leaves spots on his eyelids when he blinks, but—

But _pretty_.

Maybe Jongho was wrong about this whole thing and suns are something that is worth seeing.

“Don’t look at it directly too much,” Yeosang pulls his sleeve to turn him away. The other side of the sky is a gradient of purple, green and blue, and he can see a particular bright small dot at the horizon peeking out from behind the buildings—Shaula setting down too.

“Okay, you win. This is really pretty,” Jongho can’t keep a straight face and lets a wide smile out.

“This is Gliese C,” Yeosang points out to the biggest sun out of three, “These two are Gliese A slash B, the binary star. Well, and Shaula on the other side of the sky.”

Jongho doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at the sky and suns setting, while squinting and hiding his eyes with a palm.

“Actually Sol sun looks a bit different,” Yeosang continues, “It’s more yellow. All three Gliese suns are red dwarfs. Sunset at Earth looks more orange, this is too red.”

“You were here?”

“No, I saw the pics.”

It’s quiet after that, and Jongho tries to gather all his courage to break the silence—there’s so much that should be said, and since they are alone here and Yeosang initiated it, then he has to do it.

One of them has to start the Feelings Discussion.

He takes a deep breath and asks, “Do you space elves have hearts?”

Yeosang blinks a few times and furrows his brows. “I mean. What?”

Well, he wasn’t ready for this. “You know, like, we humans have an organ that pumps blood.”

“No, we don’t,” Yeosang bursts out laughing and shakes his head. “Why an anatomy class out of a sudden?”

“Ah, fuck. Now I don’t know how to say it.”

“Say it how it is,” he shifts closer and grabs his hand. Jongho is too nervous to register it with his brain, and he automatically intervenes their fingers.

“Exy told me she would kill me if I break your heart,” he blurts out. “And, like, it’s a figure of speech, you see? Like, breaking someone’s heart means making them really upset when they don’t expect it. I think. Do you get it?”

Yeosang nods hesitantly. “The ‘breaking’ part still misses me. Isn’t that a muscle, not a bone?”

“That’s… also a figure of speech,” Jongho squeezes his hand out of nervousness. “Ancient humans were cheesy as hell. I think it’s because you might feel so sad that your chest starts hurting. Same with positive emotions, your heart beats faster and it’s something… like bubbles bursting in your chest. Do you… feel like this?”

Yeosang thinks a bit before replying. “When you get extremely sad, the face flowers wither. And skin gets itchy when you’re excited. Or angry.”

“Oh, cool,” Jongho says this in an absolutely stressed voice. “Does being with me makes your skin itchy? Because when I’m with you, I feel so many bubbles it’s making me sick. Like I’m about to throw up bubbles—”

“Pause,” Yeosang squeezes his hand and pulls him a bit closer too rough. “Is talking about throwing up a part of earthling mating process?”

He’s smiling a bit, but his eyes are sparkling with some mix of stress and hope. As if he has expectations for this conversation.

Which is not very smart of him, because Jongho is a massive nerd.

“Okay, listen, it just feels very awkward to say directly,” Jongho then imitates coughing after every word, “I lov— I like— I li— Like— Can’t even say it.” And another fake coughing fit in the end of the sentence.

Yeosang smiles over his clownery, and actually laughs when he finishes. Maybe it was worth it. “So I assume, Exy said something like ‘I will kill you if he loses even a single petal from his face’.”

Jongho nods overexcitedly. “I don’t know. I guess.”

“I won’t then,” he shakes his hand before letting go, and walks to the side of the roof to sit down on near the bars. It’s still a safe distance, there’s about a leg length distance to the actual edge of the roof. Jongho comes closer to him and, as he settles down next to him, Yeosang adds, “I believe in you.”

“Wow,” is the only thing that Jongho manages to let out.

“And also it’s kinda cultural thing, we don’t get that upset over our partners wronging us,” he tells him with a very smug expression.

“But… would you personally?”

“Absolutely. I’m gonna go bald out of stress.”

Jongho slightly pushes Yeosang on the shoulder, as the latter bursts out laughing.

Jongho then checks out the sunset—nothing seemingly had changed, the suns went a bit down yes, but it’s still the same bright reddish light outlining the buildings on the horizon.

“I was in Arcturus system once, before the shit went down,” Yeosang says again, in a voice suddenly lower than most of the time, somewhat sleepy flow of the words and quieter than usual. “It literally takes half of the sky and lights up during the night. A giant dark orange sphere in the sky when you sleep. It’s always like twilight.”

Jongho watches suns setting down painfully slowly, through narrowed eyes so the light won’t hurt him—it’s actually noticeable if you pay enough attention to it. Yeosang puts his head on his shoulder leaning on him with his cheek, and hooks his arm around Jongho’s and carefully runs with his hand along with it to lace their fingers again, and Jongho quite literally stops breathing for a second.

“I wish I could show it to you too,” Yeosang’s voice is on the verge of a whisper, he is close enough for him to hear it anyway.

“We will free Arcturus and see it,” Jongho squeezes his hand in confirmation and carefully looks at him, trying not to disturb as he’s lying comfortably here. After getting a lazy smile in response, he turns back to the sunset. He’s not sure what exactly makes him feel warmer—the suns, Yeosang next to him or that smile specifically; probably everything at once—but he doesn’t feel the wind getting chiller since they came here.

**Author's Note:**

> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/woosangenjoyer)


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